With rapid growth of Internet and networks, the popularity of Internet technology rises among users of network services. In order to provide secure access to network services, user names and passwords are utilized to authenticate the user logging into a system providing particular network services. Users may accesses several applications, each with its own separate authentication mechanism causing the user to remember multiple user names and passwords. Due to this inconvenience users usually utilize the same user name and password for multiple applications that they access. In addition, users choose easy to remember passwords, which usually are easy to crack by hackers. Cracking of one password for an account breaches other accounts with the same user name and password. Network setups such as wireless Local Area Networks, remote access features, and weak intrusion protection increase vulnerability of passwords to technical attacks by hackers.
Many hackers are able to trick users by posing as system administrators causing the users to voluntarily provide the hackers with their passwords and user names.
Due to multiple accounts and multiple passwords that users maintain, password management for system administrators becomes a tedious and sometimes burdensome task. Resetting forgotten and compromised passwords, disabling all accounts of a departing employee are examples of tasks that system administrators need to perform in order to manage passwords of existing accounts in the system. Inaccurate password management may lead to security breaches, such as failing to delete a password of a fired employee may allow that employee to access network areas that that employee should not be accessing anymore.
Further, even if passwords are correctly managed, using passwords correctly for authenticating users is fundamentally vulnerable to various attacks from anywhere on the Internet. One of the best ways to lower the population of potential attackers is to use a certificate-based authentication mechanism with private keys stored on physical tokens. The process of transitioning from password-based authentication to token/certificate-based authentication is a complex process. However, it is a transition process that all enterprises serious about digital security need to undertake.
What is needed, therefore, is a solution that overcomes these and other shortcomings of the prior art.